Second language learning theories

 To know differences between Learning and Acquisition
 To know the role of Electronic Devices in language
acquisition (LA)
 To know the first three years of LA
 To know developmental sequence in LA
 To know “WUG Test”
 To know theories of first language acquisition:
Behaviorism, Innatism, Interactionist
 To know Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
 Bilingualism and Additive & Subtractive Bilingualism
 To know Connectionism

First language acquisition is the process
by which humans acquire the capacity
to perceive and comprehend language,
as well as to produce and use words
and sentences to communicate.

Children go through a number of
different stages as language acquirers,
from the earliest stage of producing
cooing sounds (repetition) until being
able to produce complex, multi-word
sentences.

 Is it adequate for babies to hear
language sounds from electronic
devices in order to acquire the
language?
 In order to be able to
distinguish between the sounds
and acquire a language, they
need to interact with human
speaker (Conboy & Kuhl 2001)

Milestones and
developmental sequences

Babbling Stage: typically lasts from
the age of three to nine months, when
children begin to develop their
articulatory movements needed to
produce the speech sounds of their
native language.

Holophrasis is the prelinguistic use of a
single word to express a complex idea.
Around the age of 10 to 13 months, children will
begin to produce their first real words.
It is important to realize that they are able to
understand more than what they are capable to
produce. Infants begin to comprehend language
about twice as fast as they are able to produce it.

Two words: It begins around the age of 18
months, when children begin to use two word sentences.
These sentences usually consist of just nouns and verbs,
such as "Where daddy?" and "Puppy big!"
Note: in this stage since
utterances are so reduced,
context & situation are
determinant for understanding
the message.

As children age, they continue to learn more new words
every day. By the time they enter school around the age
of five, children typically have a vocabulary of 10,000
words or more
Around the age of two, children begin
to produce short, multi-word sentences
that have a subject and predicate.

child who had mastered the
grammatical morphemes at the
bottom of the list had also
mastered those at the top, but the
reverse was not true.
Thus, there was evidence for a
“developmental sequence” or
order of acquisition. (Brown)
Researchers found that grammatical
morphemes were acquired by
children in a similar sequence.

WUG Test
 Jean Berko Gleason is the mother of the “wug test"
 The test demonstrated that children as young as three or
four can internalize complex grammatical codes no one
has necessarily ever tried to teach them — like forming
plurals — and apply these rules broadly, even to made-
up words

WUG Test
 Jean Berko Gleason is the mother of the “wug test"
 The test demonstrated that children as young as three or
four can internalize complex grammatical codes no one has
necessarily ever tried to teach them — like forming plurals
— and apply these rules broadly, even to made-up words
 By completing these sentences , children demonstrate that
they know the patterns for plural and simple past in
English. By generalizing these patterns to words they have
never heard before, they show that their language is more
than just a list of memorized word.

they can express them in sentences, using
the appropriate words and word order.
The following stages in the development
of negation have been observed in the
acquisition of English.
Even though children understand the functions
of negation and express them with single words
and gestures, it takes some time before

Negation is usually expressed
by the word ‘no’, either all
alone or as the first word in
the utterance.
No. No cookie. No comb hair.
The negative word appears just
before the verb. Sentences
expressing rejection or
prohibition often use don’t.
Daddy no comb hair. Don’t touch that!

Children may add forms of
negative other than ‘no’
including words like can’t and
don’t. However, children do
not yet vary these forms for
different persons or tenses.
I can’t do it. He don’t want it.
Children begin to attach the
negative element to the correct
form of auxiliary verbs such as
‘do’ and ‘be’:
You didn’t have supper.
She doesn’t want it.
They may still have difficulty
with some other features related
to negatives.
I don’t have no more candies.

There is a predictable order in which the wh-
words emerge. “What” is generally the first wh-
question to be used. Then they use “Where”
and “Who”, after that around the end of the
second year “Why” emerges, and finally
“When” and “How”.

Children use single words or
simple two- or three-word
sentences with rising
intonation.
Cookie? Mummy, book?
Children begin to use
declarative sentence with
'yes/no' questions, with rising
intonation.
You like this? I have some?

Gradually, children notice that the
structure of questions is different
and begin to produce questions
such as:
Can I go? Are you happy?
Children begin to use subject-
auxiliary inversion and can even
add 'do'.
Do dogs like ice-cream?
However, children tend to
generalize that all questions are
formed by putting a verb at the
beginning of a sentence.
Is the teddy is tired?
Do I can have a cookie?
Why you don’t have one?
Why you watched it?

Children eventually combine
inversion in yes/no question and
wh-questions.
Are these your boots?
Why did you do that?
Does daddy have a car?
Finally, wh- words appear in
subordinate clauses or
embedded questions.
Do you know where the ball is?
Why the teddy bear can’t go outside?
Negative question may still be
a bit too difficult.

 By the age of four, most
children can ask questions,
give commands, report real
events, create an imaginary
story, use correct word and
grammar.
 They have acquired the
basic structure of the
language that they have
heard.

 Also they begin to
develop metalinguistic
awareness, the ability to
treat language as an
object separate from the
meaning it conveys.

 Writing is one aspect of
language is growing at
school.
 Language register is another
development.
 Learning to read gives a major boot to metalinguistic
awareness.
 Vocabulary grows at a rate of between several hundred
and more than a thousand words a year.

1) Behaviorism: Say what I say
2) Innatism: It’s all in your mind
3) Interactionist/Developmental perspectives:

1. The Behaviorist Perspective
1940s, US
Best-known its proponent: B. F. Skinner
Learning is by imitation & practice
The children receive “positive reinforcement” like
praise or just successful communication
Quality, quantity, consistency of the
reinforcement, and environment would shape the
child’s language behavior.

Language learning is the result of:
 imitation (word-for-word repetition),
 practice (repetitive manipulation of form),
feedback on success (positive
reinforcement)
 habit formation.

The quality and
quantity of the
language that the child
hears
as well as the
consistency of the
reinforcement offered
by others in the
environment
would shape the
child’s language
behaviour.

 Thus, Children learn language step by step
Imitation
Repetition
Memorization
Controlled drilling
Reinforcement
Reinforcement can either be positive or negative

Limitations in the Behaviorist Perspective
The children are using language creatively, for
example:
 Overgeneralizing patterns in language
 Focus on meaning rather than form and structure
 Questions formation in different situation
 Mentioning the events in the order of their
occurrences
These limitation led researchers to look for different
explanations for language acquisition.

Chomsky (1959)
argues that behaviorism
cannot provide
sufficient explanations
for children’s language
acquisition for the
following reasons:

Children come to know more about
the structure of their language than
they could be expected to learn on the
basis of the samples of language they
hear.

The language children are exposed to
includes false starts, incomplete sentences
and slips of the tongue, and yet they learn to
distinguish between grammatical and
ungrammatical sentences.
Children are by no means systematically
corrected or instructed on language by
parents.

Children are
biologically
programmed for
language
Language
develops in the
child
In the same way
of other
biological
functions
So:

 It contains all and only the
principles and parameters which are
universal to all human languages
(i.e.. Universal Grammar – UG).

children need
access only to
samples of a
natural
language
which serve
as a trigger to
activate the
device.
Once the
LAD is
activated
They discover
the structure
of the
language to
be learned
By matching the
innate
knowledge of
basic
grammatical
principles (UG)
to the structures
of the particular
language in the
environment.

• Children’s acquisition of grammatical rules is
guided by principles of an innate UG which
could apply to all languages.
• Children “know” certain things of the language
just by being exposed to a limited number of
samples.

 Virtually all children successfully learn their
native language at a time in life when they
would not be expected to learn anything else so
complicated (i.e. biologically programmed).
 Language is separate from other aspects of
cognitive developments (e.g., creativity and
social grace) and may be located in a different
“module" of the brain.

 The language children are exposed to does not
contain examples of all the linguistic rules and
patterns.
 Animals cannot learn to manipulate a symbol
system as complicated as the natural language of a
3- or 4-year-old child.
 Children acquire grammatical rules without getting
explicit instruction.

The Innatist perspective is often linked to
The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) (Lenneberg)
 There is a specific and limited time period (i.e.,
“critical period”) for the LAD to work
successfully.
 The lateralization of brain function refers to how
some neural functions, or cognitive processes tend
to be more dominant in one hemisphere than the
other. The medial longitudinal fissure separates
the human brain into two distinct cerebral
hemispheres, connected by the corpus callosum.

Two versions
Strong Only by puberty
Weak
After puberty it will
be more difficult and
incomplete

Too much emphasis on the “final state”
(the competence of adult native speakers )
but not enough on the developmental
aspects of language acquisition.

 Language was ONE manifestation of the
cognitive and affective ability to deal with the
world
 Innatist dealt with FORMS of the language,
not with the FUNCTIONAL levels of
meaning constructed from SOCIAL
INTERACTION

 Language acquisition is an example of
children’s ability to learn from experience.
 What children need to know is essentially
available in the language they are exposed
to.

the innate learning
ability of children
the environment
in which they
develop
LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget was a proponents of
view that the children’s
language is built on their
cognitive development.

Vygotsky
Sociocultural theory of human
mental processing.
 He argued that language develops
primarily from
social interaction.

• A level that a child is able to do when there is
support from interaction with a more advanced
interlocutor.
• A supportive interactive environment enables
children to advance to a higher level of
knowledge and performance than s/he would
be able to do independently. (Vygotsky)

 Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) – adults particularly parents,
support children's cognitive development through everyday play
interactions.
 Scaffolding is a temporary support structure around that child’s
attempts to understand new ideas and complete new tasks.
 The purpose of the support is to allow the child to achieve higher
levels of development by:
 1. simplifying the task or idea
 2. motivating and encouraging the child
 Highlighting important task elements or errors
 Giving models that can be imitated.

 There is no direct pressure to learn
 There is no time limit for learning.
 There is no way of escaping into a different
language (no vacations).
 The language is not sequenced by grammar
or vocabulary (no textbook).

 There is lots of repetition
 Both the language and the world are new.
 All the language is spoken in the context of
the surrounding world.
 The language is all around.

 The child has many opportunities for using
the language to communicate to those
around him.
 Much of the language is simplified to the
level of understanding of the child.

The interaction between a language-learning
child and a speaker who responds in some way
to the child is important.
 Exposure to impersonal sources of language
such as television or radio alone are not
sufficient for children to learn the structure of
a particular language.

 One-on-one interaction gives children access
to language that is adjusted to their level of
comprehension. Once children have acquired
some language, however, television can be a
source of language and cultural information.

 Research show that language acquisition is
usage-based
 The children have this opportunities to make
connection between the language they heard
and what they experience in their
environment.

Though both innatism and connectionism look
at the cognitive aspect of language acquisition,
yet they differ in the following:
 Connectionists hypothesize that language
acquisition does not require a separate
“module of the mind” but can be explained in
terms of learning in general.

 Connectionists argue that what children need to know is
essentially available in the language they are exposed to.
 They attribute greater importance to the role of the
environment than to any innate knowledge in the learner.
 Language acquisition is not just a process of associating
words with elements of external reality. It is also a process
of associating words and phrases with the other words and
phrases that occur with them, or words with grammatical
morphemes that occur with them

 Children who learn more than one language from earliest
childhood are referred to as “simultaneous bilingual”.
 Children who learn more than one language later is called
“sequential bilingual”
 There is no evidence that learning two languages
substantially slow down their linguistic development or
interferes with cognitive development

 One aspect of bilingual language use is
referred to as “code switching”, the use of
words or phrases from more than one
language within a conversation.
 Manu children attain high level of proficiency in both
languages, but when they have the opportunity to use
them and interact with others.

 As you acquire your second language, you
continue to develop cognitively in your first
language. You develop age-appropriate
proficiency in both L1 and L2.
 The result: Positive cognitive effects.
Proficient bilinguals outscore monolinguals on
school tests.

 As you acquire your second language, you
gradually lose your first language.
 The result: Negative cognitive effects.
 Subtractive bilinguals do less well in school as
cognitive complexity increases in the school
curriculum.

Issues in first
language
acquisition

 Competence refers to
one’s underlying of a
system, event, or fact; non
observable ability to do
something.
 Performance is the overtly
observable and concrete
manifestation or
realization of competence.
It is the actual doing of
something.
Competence and
performance

They both can be aspects of
performance and competence. It is
thought that comprehension (listening
and reading) can be associated with
competence, while production
(speaking, writing) are associated with
performance.
Comprehension
and production

Nature or nurture
Nativists contend that a child
is born with an innate
knowledge of a language, and
that this innate property is
universal.
However, it hasn’t been
proven that there are
“language genes” in our
genetic information.
Environmental factors cannot
be ignored.

Language and thought
The issue at stake is to determine
how thought affects language,
how language affects thought,
and how linguists can best
describe and explain the
interaction of the two.
There have been some positions
on this such as that of Piaget,
who claimed that cognitive
development is at the center of
human organisms and that
language depends on cognitive
development.

Imitation
 Research has shown that
echoing is a particularly
salient strategy in early
language learning and an
important aspect of early
phonological acquisition.
 Children imitate the
surface structure of the
language.

Practice
Children like to play
with language.
Practicing a language
involves speaking and
comprehension
practice.

Input
The speech that young
children hear is primarily
the speech heard in home.
Also, children acquire the
language from
overhearing the
conversations of others,
from listening to the radio,
watching TV or work with
some objects.

Discourse
The child will learn how
to initiate a conversation
and give responses.
The child will identify
whether he is being
requested for information,
for an action, or for help.

Second language learning theories

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